16 Years of Exile Ending for Rostropovich

By BARBARA GAMAREKIAN, Special to The New York Times

Published: January 27, 1990

WASHINGTON, Jan. 26—
Mstislav Rostropovich sighed audibly and beamed a smile as he pondered a question about his thoughts upon returning to the Soviet Union for the first time since his exile in 1974.

''I ask you - what would you feel if you go to the planet Mars?'' he said. ''For me, it is all new there.'' A concert and party at the Kennedy Center on Thursday night served as an emotional send-off for Mr. Rostropovich, who is to make a three-week tour of the Soviet Union and Japan with the National Symphony Orchestra. They leave for Japan on Monday. Just 10 days ago, the Soviet Government announced it had restored the citizenship, honors and awards of the cellist-conductor and his wife, the soprano Galina Vishnevskaya, which had been formally stripped from them in 1978.

At the party, affirming the Soviet Union's symbolic opening of arms to the Russian-born couple, who have been traveling on international passes for stateless people, was the Soviet Ambassador to the United States, Yuri V. Dubinin, and his wife, Liana, all smiles.

'Eve of a Dream Come True'

It was an evening not only of soaring music, but also of Russian-style bear hugs and nonstop toasting in champagne, vodka and saki. The industrialist Armand Hammer, who said he planned to be front row and center in Moscow opening night, was enveloped in Mr. Rostropovich's embrace. Ambassador Dubinin kissed Miss Vishnevskaya, once on each cheek.

''Now we are on the eve of a dream come true,'' the Ambassador said as he raised his glass. ''It is much more than a cultural event. It is an event of enormous psychological and political importance. Dearest Slava: Welcome to the Soviet Union! Welcome home!''

''Sixteen years ago,'' Mr. Rostropovich replied, ''Galina and I lost our country. In these 16 years we have made for us a new family in the West, but nothing changes our blood, and when this wall - the Berlin wall -was destroyed, it united our two families. For me it was a symbol of a new era. We are coming now as one family and it is the greatest joy of our life.''

Just once in those 16 years, Mr. Rostropovich said in an interview earlier this week, did his feet touch Soviet soil, when a plane he was traveling on stopped to refuel in Moscow. ''I had no wish to come out of the airport,'' he recalled. ''The entire place was hung with huge portraits of Brezhnev, so I got as far away from the door as possible so there would be no chance of being pushed through the entrance.''

The Hall of Memories

The concert Thursday night included two works that the orchestra will perform in Moscow and Leningrad: Prokofiev's Symphony No. 5 and Barber's Adagio for Strings. For the opening night, Feb. 13, in Bolshoi Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, Mr. Rostropovich said he would conduct the orchestra in the last work he conducted there, on May 10, 1974, Tchaikovsky's ''Pathetique'' Symphony.

''That was my musical mother,'' he said of Bolshoi Hall. ''I know each brick there, each corner. I know everything. I cannot imagine how I will do this.''

The following night, and later in Leningrad, Mr. Rostropovich will perform the Dvorak Cello Concerto. On the podium will be Randall Craig Fleischer, affiliate artist conductor with the National Symphony, who said he was ''excited, honored and scared'' to be joining the orchestra on tour.

Mr. Rostropovich and his wife and daughter Olga will stay at Spaso House, the residence of the United States Ambassador, Jack F. Matlock Jr., who is giving a post-performance party on opening night.

The National Symphony's trip - its first visit to the Soviet Union and its third visit to Japan - is being underwritten by donations of $100,000 each from the Chase Manhattan Corporation, Mr. Hammer and the Armand Hammer Foundation, Pepsico Foundation, the Procter & Gamble Fund and the United States Information Agency. In addition, the Procter & Gamble Company is underwriting a broadcast of the first Moscow concert, which will be televised throughout the Soviet Union by Gosteleradio, the state television service.

To Walk in Moscow

Two works, the ''Pathetique'' and the Dvorak Cello Concerto, will be recorded in performance by Sony Classics.

Kennedy Center officials are busy scheduling Mr. Rostropovich's itinerary, handling requests from ''60 Minutes,'' the ''Today Show'' and the international news media, but Slava, as he is known to music lovers, has some plans of his own, like a nostalgic visit to the couple's old apartment.

''And I want to go from the airport to the cemetery,'' he said, ''to make my tears for my dearest friends.

''And I would like, all night, to walk in Moscow. I came to Moscow when I was 5 years old from Baku. To walk all night in Moscow will bring back my youth to me.''

Photo: Mstislav Rostropovich, left, conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra, and Yuri V. Dubinin, the Soviet Ambassador to the United States, at a party this week at Kennedy Center in Washington. (The New York Times/Lisa Berg)